The blue building with medieval battlements across the street from Washington, DC’s Navy Yard is a 19th Century structure that originally housed a public transportation garage and now holds the business offices for a charter school.
Nicknamed the “Historic Car Barn,” the fanciful structure at 770 M Street SE cast a grim shadow of cheap and faded joy over coverage of Monday’s fatal attacks on the Navy Yard.
At least 12 people have been killed in the massive shooting incident at the facility. Police believe one of a possible three shooters is dead and others remain at large.
Eagle Academy PCS has its sign on the Gothic exterior of the car barn and keeps its offices in the building. A helpful receptionist said the actual school had relocated to a nearby site.
The property is scheduled to be redeveloped into a “large scale mixed-use project that will help serve as a connection and link between the historic Capitol Hill neighborhood to the north and the growing Capitol Riverfront neighborhood to the west/southwest,” according to a Madison Marquette promo.
(Photo: Wikipedia Commons)
(Photo: Grae Stafford / The Daily Caller)
In 2005, The Washington Post reported that the car barn had been bought by Preferred Real Estate Investments Inc. for a cool $20 million. The Post’s Dana Hedgpeth dreamed of “retail stores such as a Barnes & Noble bookstore and a Whole Foods grocery,” while Preferred CEO Michael G. O’Neill promised to repaint the building “in a more restrained hue.”